


Innocence

by halotolerant



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: 1960s, Angst, Gay Rights, Gen or Pre-Slash, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Law Enforcement, M/M, Police
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Detective Inspector Thursday there were rules to follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kindkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/gifts).



“He broke the law, Morse.” Frederick Thursday put his hat and greatcoat on the stand by his desk and busied himself for a few minutes with his back turned, getting what he needed from the pockets.

The argument had begun in the car-park of the _Royal Swan_ hotel, continued in the car – Morse gesticulating when he had better been steering – and up the stairs of the police station. Fred had hoped that now even Morse might tire, might take a look at the clock and get on with his reports. Might above all think for a moment, and stop discussing this so loudly and publicly. 

But Morse had pursued him into his office, had not closed the door behind him and now stood rocking up and down on the balls of his feet, arms crossed, one hand lifted to his mouth as he worried a fingernail. 

“Sir, Gregson didn’t know about Yates. He didn’t mean to break the law and even if he did, what of it? Why should it matter?”

Fred moved to stand behind his desk. It had been a long day and he deeply wished to sink down into his chair, but to do so would seem to Morse like either dismissal or capitulation. 

Either would have suited Fred, but for Detective Inspector Thursday there were rules to follow. 

Just as there had been for Gerald Gregson. 

Instead of sitting, therefore, he merely leant forward, resting his hands on his desk, and waited until Morse met his gaze. 

He was surprised by the depth of feeling in Morse’s eyes. As if Morse himself were the wounded one. But then Morse _did_ feel things, would let himself feel things that most constables swiftly learnt not to. If, indeed, they ever could. 

Fred would not so much deceive himself as to say he had never thought of Morse in connection with this topic, but he had better sense than ever to dwell on it. And wondering whether this episode of insubordination had any more meaning to Morse than his usual forays would most definitely be dwelling.

“The law is not there for us to debate,” Fred said, slowly. “That’s not what we do. If you appear to break the law, in a way that warrants arrest, we arrest you. That’s all. Guilt and innocence are for the courts, and the shape of the law is for something above even them, and certainly not for you and me. We take the law as we find it. We have to.”

Morse was frowning at him, not in anger it seemed, but something more like curiosity. The squint of one who examines, who searches, who has faith a clue will surface. 

Fred moved back and pulled out his chair. He would sit, and damn Morse if he read anything into it. 

The brilliance of Morse’s mind was something that, on most days, he gave thanks for. Something that gave faith and purpose to a long road long travelled. 

 But it some ways it was perhaps like thinking you could train a tiger, and forgetting that such things, kept close, could be dangerous.

“Yates is nineteen,” Morse was saying, in the steady but heated way he had when he took a cause to heart. “He’s old enough to join the army, old enough to kill and be killed, to choose that. I just don’t see...” he took a deep breath, licking his lips. “I don’t see why, if he wanted to live with Gregson, to sleep with Gregson, it makes any difference to anyone else.” Morse had walked forward as he spoke, and now it was he who leant on the desk, leaning towards Fred, his pale face lined with worry. 

“They were on holiday, sir,” Morse finished, as if that made the world of difference. 

And as if Fred Thursday, with all the mighty powers of a district Inspector of Police, could undo the injustices of the world simply by perceiving them to be so. 

Fred closed his eyes for a moment. 

“Billy Yates is under twenty-one,” he began. “He and Gregson were engaging in sexual activity in a hotel room. I agree that that is not something to which we would normally divert the resources of the police but having accidentally discovered them, we cannot ignore it. It is breaking the law. They are guilty, Morse, because that is what breaking the law is.”

“And in the meantime, we’re no closer to finding Hannah Lee’s killer. Because we spent all evening sorting this out.” Morse was leaning closer now, his voice raised, angry. 

“If people don’t want to be caught up in police investigations, they shouldn’t take damn fool risks like going to popular hotels!”

Fred sat back in his chair, wondering for a moment if he’d really said that out loud, and as loud as he thought he had. Morse’s stunned expression unfortunately suggested so. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in that long, horrible, pointless, cruel evening. 

“What would you have suggested I do, Morse? Stand there with those lads from uniform and tell them to look the other way? And what then? What about the man dealing drugs who’s supporting his kiddies? What about the murderer who’s avenging his sister? If we start deciding we know better than the law, when do we stop?”

Morse had stepped back again, but his gaze had not dropped. There was something new in it, something Fred winced under. 

“We know better than this law, sir. We both know better than this law.” 

And he turned on his heel, smartly, as if at parade, and left the room. 

Fred sat very still in his chair, opened a drawer of his desk, took out a piece of paper and placed it in front of him. 

When the urge to follow Morse had subsided, he let himself walk to the window and look out into the night, and towards the cell block where even now Yates and Gregson would be lying on hard, cold, acceptably separate beds to await the morning and the decision of their fate. 

Perhaps a harder thing than protecting yourself from a tiger is protecting the tiger from itself. 

But he’d do anything to keep Morse safe. That much he would allow himself to know, and that much might comfort him, eventually. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Endeavour_ is set in 1965-66, before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 made homosexual acts between men legal under some circumstances in England and Wales. However, even after this the age of consent remained 21 and the restriction to acts 'in private' excluded anything but private homes, hence this fic could be considered to take place at a slightly later date.


End file.
